BG | berlinergazette.deMar 7, 2025
How can we reclaim and reinvent cities as infrastructures of both human and other-than-human life? How can we connect urban and ecological struggles? At #KinCity researchers, artists, and activists sought answers. View the documentation (audio, video, and workshop projects) here: https://berlinergazette.de/projects/kin-city/
Kin City · Reimagining Urban Space within Ecological Limits · October 17-19 · ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics

Conference · Artistic Interventions · Workshops with Debora Darabi, Pepe Dayaw, Sandra Huning, Constanza Mendoza, Cata von Noxen, Svjetlana Nedimović, Claudia Núñez, Sara Petrolova, Model Y. Schrottkiste, Farhana Sultana, Dzina Zhuk, and many more.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deJan 29, 2025
In their #KinCity talk, Paula Mikat and Cléo Mieulet zoom in on the Sorge ins ParkCenter initiative in Berlin, which is working on the socialization of a shopping mall and its transformation into a care center. You can listen to the recording here: https://berlinergazette.de/turning-shopping-malls-into-care-centers/ #caringcities @rosaluxstiftung
Towards an Eco-Feminist City: Turning Shopping Malls into Care Centers · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

Today, we are challenged to combine anti-capitalist approaches with eco-feminist approaches to enable the development of the caring city we so desperately need on this deeply troubled planet. A collective political consciousness (and thus a unifying class politics) could emerge if those of us in struggle (1) reclaimed the infrastructure of human life, including collective public systems such as mass transit, along with food and healthcare and affordable housing; (2) appropriated the ruins left by capital for post-capitalist and eco-feminist purposes (e.g., by converting shopping malls into care centers); and (3) understood this process as the basis and expression of new forms of social coexistence and politics, indeed an urban politics from below that can simultaneously develop a sense of kinship with other-than-human life and thus drive a truly sustainable urban metabolism. In their “Kin City” talk, Paula Mikat and Cléo Mieulet zoom in on a specific case in Berlin: the Sorge ins ParkCenter initiative, which is working on the socialization of a shopping mall and its transformation into a care center.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deJan 29, 2025
Nelli Kambouri + Dafni Karavola discuss how Athen’s capitalist metabolism could be disrupted and how an eco-politics from below could be formed by the dispossessed. Their #KinCity talk was moderated by Sotiris Sideris. You can listen to the recording here: https://berlinergazette.de/contested-urban-ecologies-in-athens-caring-communities-environmental-racism-and-green-policing/
Contested Urban Ecologies in Athens: Caring Communities, Environmental Racism, and Green Policing · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

Athens is a city where air pollution from vehicles is widespread, while the intensification of construction activity, often in the name of green development, has made green spaces scarce. Athens is also a city with a growing waste problem, including unresolved contradictions in waste recycling, which is mainly carried out by racialized communities in ‘Athens […]

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deJan 29, 2025
Christine Winter rethinks decolonial urban ecologies from within and against colonial relations of violence. Her #KinCity talk was moderated by Rose Wanjiku. You can listen to the recording here: https://berlinergazette.de/kin-cities-in-a-settler-state-whose-kin-audio/
Kin Cities in a Settler State – Whose Kin? · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

When the English settlers began to conquer and colonize Aotearoa to make it New Zealand, they began a process of erasure. They wanted a blank page on which to write their history: the story of thriving cities and tamed nature, populated by creatures that had been imported from their homeland, as had everything else. In her “Kin City” talk, Christine Winter rethinks decolonial urban ecologies from within and against these relations of violence

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deJan 29, 2025
Flooding, waterlogging, and water scarcity coexist and pose a serious problem in cities. As climate change alters hydro-social cycles, a kind of ‘climate class society’ is emerging, as Farhana Sultana shows in her #KinCity talk. Listen to the audio here: https://berlinergazette.de/climate-injustice-in-the-megacities-of-the-global-south/
Climate (In)Justice in the Megacities of the Global South · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

In the megacities of the Global South, urban inequalities collide with erratic climatic conditions, creating new crises and exacerbating old ones. Megacities in monsoon deltas face climate-related water crises in a variety of ways. This is exacerbated in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where development policies, haphazard urban planning, rapid urban population growth, and social […]

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deJan 29, 2025
A look from the future to the present: Is the city alive, dead, or even undead? The oral storytelling of Cata von Noxen (aka Cătălin Ilie), Sara Petrolova, and Model Y. Schrottkiste (aka @TironStefan ) at the #KinCity festival took place on October 18, 2024 at the ZK/U – Center for Arts and Urbanistics. You can listen to the recording here: https://berlinergazette.de/vwagner-city-edda/
VWagner City-Edda · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

A look from the future to the present. Cata von Noxen, Sara Petrolova and Model Y. Schrottkiste tell and decipher the forgotten “VWagner City-Edda.” How will future generations view all the hesitation and procrastination in the face of today’s climate change? How hopeless will the current situation appear from the perspective of the future? Is the city alive, dead, or even undead? Do we really want to know what the smart city thinks about us? Has everything been gambled away? What happened to the belief in the omnipotence of our own actions?

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deDec 17, 2024
During colonial-capitalist urbanization cities emerged as the engines of growth, so it is not surprising that in the face of the ecological polycrisis, the attention is focused on metropolitan spaces, neglecting the living conditions of rural people, who in many ways provide the resources for the urban engines of growth. This urban-rural divide is particularly problematic in the case of palm oil plantations in Indonesia, as Tania Li shows in her #KinCity article: https://berlinergazette.de/no-kinship-without-acknowledgement-challenging-rural-urban-disconnects/
No Kinship Without Acknowledgement: Challenging Rural-Urban Disconnects · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

Colonial-capitalist urbanization has made cities the engines of growth, so it is not surprising that in the face of the ecological polycrisis, the attention of the media, business, and the state is focused on the cities, while the living conditions of the rural population, which still makes up about 40 percent of the world’s population and in many ways provides the resources for the urban engines of growth, are completely neglected. This urban-rural divide is particularly stark in the case of palm oil plantations in Indonesia, as Tania Li shows in her article for the “Kin City” series.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deDec 13, 2024
The climate catastrophe – a rebellion of nature? – is exacerbating the global social imbalance to such an extent that we must push for a renaissance of demands for equality and justice, not least to avoid leaving the field open to right-wing and authoritarian politics, as Lucas Pohl ( @sub_urban ) argues in his contribution to the #KinCity text series: https://berlinergazette.de/struggles-at-the-margins-urban-political-ecologies-and-externalized-disasters/
Struggles at the Margins: Urban Political Ecologies and Externalized Disasters · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

At least since colonial capitalist globalization, access to the necessities of life has been systematically and unequally distributed. So far, this injustice has not triggered a world revolution. But the climate catastrophe – a rebellion of nature? – is exacerbating the global social imbalance to such an extent that we must push for a renaissance of demands for equality and justice, not least to avoid leaving the field open to right-wing and authoritarian politics, as Lucas Pohl argues in his contribution to the “Kin City” text series.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deDec 12, 2024
Revolting against capitalism is urgently needed in the face of climate collapse caused by capitalism. First, we need to rethink the relation between Big Tech + urban revolt, argues Michael Kwet in his #KinCity-article: https://berlinergazette.de/digital-degrowth-and-smart-cities-challenging-the-power-of-big-tech-disrupting-capitalism/ #digitaldegrowth @plutopress
Digital Degrowth and ‘Smart’ Cities: Challenging the Power of Big Tech, Disrupting Capitalism · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

Leading Big Tech companies are worth more than the entire annual GDP of most countries. This is not only a reflection of their economic power, but also a reminder of the growing degree of algorithmic control that Big Tech tools and infrastructures exert over the inequalities that sustain the capitalist metabolism. If cities, where about 5 of the world’s more than 8 billion people live today, are to become the platforms for the global revolution we need today to end the global hegemony of capitalism – an endeavor that seems more urgent than ever in the face of the climate catastrophe caused by capitalism – then we need to rethink the relationship between Big Tech and urban revolt, argues Michael Kwet in his article for the “Kin City” series.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE
BG | berlinergazette.deDec 11, 2024
Drawing on research in Berlin’s inner-city neighborhoods, Debora Darabi’s article for the #KinCity series discusses how poverty, environmental injustice, and public health crises intersect, challenging us to rethink the social structures that shape these phenomena: https://berlinergazette.de/capitalism-climate-and-class-understanding-the-social-roots-of-urban-environmental-injustice/
Capitalism, Climate, and Class: Understanding the Social Roots of Urban Environmental Injustice · BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE

Environmental stressors, such as air and noise pollution or lack of green space, disproportionately affect marginalized communities and worsen mental and physical health outcomes. These stressors do not exist in isolation. They are products of systemic inequalities embedded in capitalist social relations. Drawing on her research in Berlin’s inner-city neighborhoods, Deborah Darabi examines how poverty, environmental injustice, and public health crises intersect, challenging us to rethink the social structures that shape these phenomena.

BG · berlinergazette.de · EN|DE